Saturday 26 March 2011

We're off to see the wizard...




Dress: Topshop via eBay
Vest (just seen): Topshop
Tights: H&M
Brooch: Dorothy Perkins via eBay
Shoes: Office

Lips: MAC Faux
Eyes: MAC Shroom shadow, TBS Carbon eyeliner, Max Factor Masterpiece mascara in black
Face: MAC Select concealer in NW15, MAC Pro Longwear foundation in NC15, TBS All-in-One Face Base in 02

We're off out to Cheltenham for a surprise birthday party shortly. I am looking forward to it, haven't been out for ages! I think I might end up changing the tights to failsafe black ones in a mo though, I feel a bit chunky in these ones! Also need to redo my hair, I swear it looked fine two seconds before taking the photos. Annoying!

Hope everyone is having a lovely Saturday. 

Friday 25 March 2011

Normal service has resumed...

Just had an email from a lovely person telling me that she couldn't comment on my blog posts anymore, and that there was a message saying that you had to be a member to post! I thought this sounded a bit odd, but went into my settings and, lo and behold, the "members only" checkbox was ticked in the comments section.

I sure as heck didn't tick it, so who did?!

Anyway, reader comments are now enabled again. Thank you to the lovely Lucy for letting me know - goodness knows how long it would have taken me to find out otherwise!

Anyone else had this problem?

xxx

Oh what can I do, I'm still dreaming of you...

Such a glorious day today! I added touches of coral and orange to my outfit and make up today, as I feel they are such spring-like colours. I went for one of my favourite lipsticks (Topshop Brighton Rock) and my underused MAC Melba blush. I don't know why, but I tend to overlook Melba in favour of more pinky shades. Photos were taken using my laptop's inbuilt camera, so look a little washed out I'm afraid! I've added the close up one of my legs as I'm always concerned about the size of my thighs but think they look ok in this picture! Perhaps I have been worrying about nothing all this time, or perhaps it's just a flattering photo...





Firework print dress: Dorothy Perkins
Camel cardigan: Topshop
Orange tights: Accessorize
Vampire blood necklace: H&M
Lipstick: Topshop Brighton Rock
Blush: MAC Melba

Plus the usual MAC Select concealer (NW15) and MAC Pro Longwear foundation (NC15).

What are your favourite spring shades?

Thursday 24 March 2011

The Sainsbury's "Five Family Meals for £20" Plan - Day Four


Didn't really need the recipe for this one, but we followed it anyway for the sake of fairness. The sausages took a little longer to cook than the stated 25 minutes, and we had three each rather than two as we are little piggies. They're only 84 calories each though, which is pretty low for sausages. Let's not talk about the fat and salt content though, eh? Also, TOO MUCH MASH!

This was lovely, but you can't really go wrong with bangers and mash can you?! We worked out that our meals cost just 30p each though, which is AMAZING.

Picture:


Overall score out of 10: 8

I really need to start taking the photos with our DSLR rather than my pathetic iPhone camera. The food looks so much better in real life, and I'm not doing it justice at all. Trouble is, I don't want to be bothered with focussing and so forth when faced with a plate of food, I just want to dive in. Not literally, but almost...

Wednesday 23 March 2011

The Sainsbury's "Five Family Meals for £20" Plan - Day Three


Again, very easy to make. We skipped the frozen green beans, and made egg fried rice rather than having plain boiled as, let's face it, plain boiled rice is boring. This was really tasty, although the Basics range mozzarella was a little bland - if we make it again, I think we'll buy better quality mozzarella.

Pictures:

 


Plus bonus one of Andy's hand moving faster than the speed of light:


Overall score out of 10: 8.

Tuesday 22 March 2011

The Sainsbury's "Five Family Meals for £20" Plan - Day Two


This one was less faffy than yesterday's (not that yesterday's was particularly faffy) and took 20 minutes to prepare. The recipe said it should take 15, but I don't think we did too badly! We put a little grated Cheddar cheese on top of the potatoes as we are both cheese fiends. It took 45 minutes too cook rather than 30, but it was worth the wait. Absolutely DELICIOUS! Creamy sauce, soft potatoes, tender turkey, rich mushrooms and, erm, leeky leeks.

Pictures:



Overal score out of 10: 9. Point lost due to recipe timings being a bit skewiff!

Oh, and I had yesterday's leftovers for lunch with a poached egg:


Monday 21 March 2011

Spring has sprung...

The Sainsbury's "Five Family Meals for £20" Plan - Day One

My husband and I decided to try Sainsbury's (relatively) new collaboration with Jamie Oliver, the "Five Family Meals for £20" plan this week, as we've been finding ourselves going to the supermarket for tea every evening rather than planning in advance. Obviously, there are only two of us, so the plan will leave us with leftovers each day - we are going to either eat these for lunch or freeze them, both options will end up saving us money in the long run.

We went to shopping on Sunday morning armed with our list of ingredients (printed from the website), which we were told would cost us £19.97. It actually ended up costing us slightly less as some of the items were on offer. I was a bit worried that some of the items might not be available, but we had no problem getting any of the things on the list. The plan assumes that you have basic stock cupboard ingredients of things ilke stock cubes, garlic and olive oil, so if you didn't and had to buy them, the weekly cost would obviously be slightly higher than £20.

We started with week four, and day one's recipe was "creamy sausage & lemon pasta", which took about 25 minutes to cook and very little time to prepare. It was extremely easy to make, and very tasty. The only thing I would say though is that the recipe called for 350g of pasta for four people. 350g! That's almost 90g per person! I usually eat about 50g, so ended up leaving quite a lot on my plate. I think next time, we'll use less pasta and slightly less lemon juice as the lemony taste was ever so slightly overpowering.

 
 Overall score out of 10: 7.

Saturday 19 March 2011

Recent eBay purchases...






From top to bottom: Topshop t-shirt (£4.96), Tatty Devine necklace (£14.99), Topshop dress (£5.50), Assorted rings (£2.20), Primark dress (£1.99).

All bought in the last three weeks. Bargains! The Tatty Devine necklace cost more than I'd usually spend on eBay, but I've wanted it for so long so I snapped it up at its "Buy It Now" price of £14.99 as soon as I saw it. It retailed at around £40 years ago, so I thought £14.99 was a really good price.

All pictures were taken from the eBay auctions.

Monday 14 March 2011

Getting fit: Couch to 5K.

So. I've been meaning to do a "couch to 5km" plan since January 1st, but have only just got round to starting. I would say that life got in the way, but really it was laziness and nothing else. But, on Saturday afternoon I took the plunge and downloaded an iPhone app from here. I added a selection of "motivational music*" from my iTunes, put on my running gear and headed out. I really enjoyed it, and so did the drivers of Worcester if my "beeped horn count" is anything to go by (four, if you're interested). I did the second workout on Sunday (two beeps), and the third one today (three beeps). That's right, three days in a row. It's almost a trend...

The plan is designed to last nine weeks, with three workouts per week. Week one workouts last just over half an hour and are made up of a five minute brisk walk for a warm up, a walking/running interval section (60 seconds running, 90 seconds walking) for 21 minutes, and a five minute cool down walk. Each week, the amount of time you spend running increases and the amount of time you spend walking decreases. At the end of the plan, you should be able to run for 30 minutes, which should equate to 5km. I plan to try and squeeze four workouts in each week, which will mean I complete the plan in about six weeks. I'll do the week two, day one workout on Thursday this week I think. Parents' Evening tomorrow and Wednesday, so I'll want to veg out when I get home...

Here are my stats:

Saturday: Covered 3.86km in 31 minutes at a pace of 10:53/mile for the running section and 13:54/mile overall.
Sunday: Covered 4.02km in 31 minutes at a pace of 10:23/mile for the running section and 13:00/mile overall.
Monday: Covered 4.02km in 31 minutes at a pace of 10:30/mile for the running section and 12:57/mile overall.

Not bad. Wonder how long I can keep it up for? I think I'll blog about it once a week to keep a record. The fab thing about the app (which costs 59p) is that it tracks and keeps a record of progress so I'll (hopefully) be able to see an improvement over the course of the next few weeks, as well as feeling an improvement when out on the road. The sad mathematician in me likes the little graph you get too...

Has anyone else tried one of these plans before? How did you get on? Did you keep running afterwards?




* A fantabulous mix including System of a Down, Muse, Girls Aloud, Glee, PJ & Duncan, ELO, Pixies, Backstreet Boys, Chemical Brothers, The Strokes and MANY MORE amazing tunes. AMAZING.

Sunday 6 March 2011

Outfit post...

We went out last night and this is what I wore...

Please excuse the hideous photos - I am terrible at having my photos taken! I never know whether to smile or not, so always end up with some weird half-serious, half-gormless look on my face.

Anyway, outfit details are as follows:
Floral jersey dress: Topshop
Brown leather belt with heart detail: Topshop
Grey jersey cardigan: Topshop, via eBay
Forest green tights: M&S
Long black ribbed socks: New Look
Taupe wedges: Office (a sale bargain!)
Vampire teeth and blood necklace: H&M

We had a really good night, although I spent much of it worrying that my skirt was too short!
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